Top Trades: May 6-May 13

Happy Thursday, everyone! Another week, another Top Trades, the weekly series where we check in with some of Cardsphere's most popular picks. What are traders eagerly looking for this week? Let's take a look!

Honorable Mention - Goblin Bombardment

Number of Trades: 6 --- Number of Cards Traded: 7

Starting off our list from the week is a classic Commander pick which is seeing new life in Modern thanks to its inclusion in Modern Horizons 2. So, what's up with Goblin Bombardment this week?

The Boros Energy deck continues to push the top leaderboards across Modern tournaments, and core to that deck is Modern Horizons 3 all-star Ocelot Pride. For , this Cat can quickly create a board full of tokens, tokens which Goblin Bombardment readily sacrifices in order to clear the board for some of the larger attackers, like Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury. Alternatively, if the game is getting tight, then there's never any problem with just Flinging some Cats at a player's face.

Outside of Modern, Goblin Bombardment continues its all-star life in Commander, doing everything from killing tables by properly sacrificing Goblin tokens made by any of Magic's many Krenkos or serving as an unrestricted outlet for some of cEDH's bevy of broken combos, like infinitely sacrificing Dargo, the Shipwrecker (assuming you also have a Relic of Legends to keep floating each time).

#5 - Generous Ent

Number of Trades: 6 --- Number of Cards Traded: 7

Moving on to our main list of picks for the week, we're starting things off with green's member of Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth's most broken cycle of commons, and that is Generous Ent.

Hailing from the same set of commons that Troll of Khazad-dûm and Lórien Revealed, Generous Ent is a landcycler, a card which you can pay and discard in order to search your library for a land of a specific type (Forest, in this case). So, what's unique about the green version? Beyond grabbing a land, Generous Ent is a 5/7 Treefolk with reach that costs and creates a Food token when it enters the battlefield.

Ultimately, the power from Generous Ent isn't in any of what the creature side of it can do; rather it's the fact that that option exists in the first place. Most of the time, Generous Ent is a card which will be discarded on an end step in order to find the necessary land to play on the next turn. In the late game, however, when lands are dead draws, having something to do with excess mana - rather than just stare at a Forest in your hand - is something which plenty of decks appreciate, primarily in Pauper, where big-mana Elves piles run rampant.

#4 - Ashnod's Altar

Number of Trades: 6 --- Number of Cards Traded: 7

Coming in at our fourth pick for the week is another unrestricted sacrifice outlet which has gone on to live a broken life across all brackets of Commander, and that's Ashnod's Altar.

For , this artifact which is nearly as old as Magic has one ability: "Sacrifice a creature: Add ."

Just like Goblin Bombardment, Ashnod's Altar exists as a way to close games by converting an army of insubstantial creatures into significant payoffs, such as finding that last few mana to cast an Eldrazi or an extra-turn spell. When you aren't using that extra mana, however, Ashnod's Altar also doubles as an easy way to get a lot of on-death triggers, such as those from Blood Artist, allowing non-red Commander decks to have one more outlet for direct damage (well, life loss) despite missing out on Fling-style effects.

While Ashnod's Altar isn't seeing the sort of competitive resurgence that Goblin Bombardment is, don't let that fool you. This thing never leaves Commander, and it continues to win games pretty handily there.

#3 - Slip Out the Back

Number of Trades: 6 --- Number of Cards Traded: 8

Here at out halfway point is a nifty little combat trick that doubles as both protection and removal, courtesy of the phasing mechanic. Let's look at Slip Out the Back.

For , this instant puts a +1/+1 counter on target creature, then causes that creature to phase out until end of turn (it phases back in before its controller untaps on their next turn).

In practice, this usually plays out in one of two ways: a creature you control is about to leave play for one reason or another - destruction, exile, bounce spell, it doesn't matter - and you respond by paying to make sure that you keep you creature, but in exchange it'll be gone until your next turn; alternatively, if you only need one more turn to win the game but you're facing down dangerous odds in combat on your opponent's turn, you can phase out an attacker. Sure, it comes back stronger on their next turn, but you'll (hopefully) have won by then anyways, so the risk ends up being worth it, especially for such a low mana value.

#2 - Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice

Number of Trades: 7 --- Number of Cards Traded: 7

Ooh, boy, coming up in second place this week is a contemporary classic of Commander Voltron strategies, none other than Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty's very own Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice.

For , Light-Paws is a 2/2 legendary Fox Advisor creature with "Whenever an Aura you control enters, if you cast it, you may search your library for an Aura card with mana value less than or equal to that Aura and with a different name than each Aura you control, put that card onto the battlefield attached to Light-Paws, then shuffle."

This Fox may start out as a 2/2, but as anyone who has ever seen a Ethereal Armor can attest that small starting power can quickly snowball as the one- and two-cost enchantments start to pile on in the early turns. On high power tables, it's not uncommon for a single Light-Paws swing to be lethal by turn four, so keep an eye out.

#1 - Moonmist

Number of Trades: 19 --- Number of Cards Traded: 201

Well, folks, this one certainly does it. If ever there was a card deserving of the title "Top Trade," it would be this week's most traded card, with Moonmist - a common from Innistrad - coming in at over 200 cards traded in a single week. So, let's talk about it.

At first glance, Moonmist isn't a particularly interesting card. For , Moonmist is an instant which transforms all Humans as well as prevents all combat damage that would be dealt this turn except by Wolves and Werewolves. Importantly, this doesn't work on cards which transform due to the Daybound / Nightbound mechanic, as they have their own special rules baggage which prevents all other transform effects from working. However, by focusing on what this card was meant for - Innistrad's Werewolves - you'll miss out on this week's new hype: Final Fantasy.

In Magic's upcoming crossover set with the Final Fantasy franchise, there is an abundance of Humans which have inordinately expensive and/or difficult transformation requirements, and Moonmist bypasses these requirements with absurd ease. This makes Moonmist - a common - an easy pickup for plenty of players looking to build out the next generation of newly turbo-charged Final Fantasy Commander decks, accelerating plenty of game-ending threats.

Wrap Up

All in all, this week was a pretty normal one...up until Moonmist, that is. Plenty of Commander cards, a hit from Modern and Pauper sprinkled in, and then BAM! An old, hitherto undernoticed common shows up with a vendetta... a 201-card vendetta. Come back next week to see what more has been traded, and until then, thanks for reading!